crwdns2936637:0crwdne2936637:0 crwdns2853008:0crwdne2853008:0 crwdns2861143:0crwdne2861143:0

Repair information and guides for the 2015 Retina MacBook Air. Model A1534

crwdns2934591:0281crwdne2934591:0 crwdns2934593:0crwdne2934593:0

crwdns2933897:0crwdne2933897:0

MacBook won't turn on - transiently worked after replacing I/O cable

Bit of background - my wife’s Macbook A1534 had a broken screen and chassis due to physical damage. I bought a comparable model with a dead logic board on eBay, and I transplanted her logic board into the new one. Everything worked fine for a few weeks, until she was recently unable to turn it on after letting the battery die. There is no power, nothing. I tried resetting SMC and PRAM to no avail.

So I decided to pop it open again and replaced the I/O board flex cable and tried plugging it in before I reconnected the keyboard and reassembled everything. Surprisingly, it turned on again! But the keyboard wasn’t plugged in, so I couldn’t turn it back off… so I let the battery die again, and reconnected the keyboard and reassembled everything. This time, I couldn’t get it to turn on. I spent a bunch of time troubleshooting… tried removing and re-inserting the I/O board cable, replaced the I/O board itself (i.e. the USB-C/charging port), punching in every combination of “reset” keys I could find online, disconnecting/reconnecting the battery, etc. Nothing works.

I initially thought the logic board was bad, but I don’t know how I got it to briefly work. Any thoughts?

crwdns2934081:0crwdne2934081:0 crwdns2934083:0crwdne2934083:0 crwdns2934093:0crwdne2934093:0

crwdns2934109:0crwdne2934109:0

crwdns2853045:0crwdne2853045:0 crwdns2853046:0crwdne2853046:0
crwdns2889612:0crwdne2889612:0 0
crwdns2942205:01crwdne2942205:0

You should all try this... https://youtu.be/6OBRm_m4AZc

crwdns2934271:0crwdnd2934271:0crwdne2934271:0

crwdns2934285:0crwdne2934285:0

crwdns2933313:01crwdne2933313:0

crwdns2934221:0crwdne2934221:0
crwdns2931211:0crwdne2931211:0 crwdns2931215:0crwdne2931215:0 crwdns2934225:0crwdne2934225:0
crwdns2934051:0crwdne2934051:0

crwdns2933897:0crwdne2933897:0

This Macbook is a beautiful machine but it’s quite troublesome when it comes to repairs. There’s a small button on the logic board that has to be pressed until the led goes off, before anything else, to discharge residual power from the board..did you do that ? After reassembly the 2015 model cannot be simply plugged in with its Usb-C adapter, but first it needs to be charged for a while with a lower voltage adapter, such as an iPhone or iPad charger, otherwise the logic board might take some damage. Was that done ? If answer is no to either question, that might explain the problem you’re facing right now.

crwdns2934105:0crwdne2934105:0

crwdns2853045:0crwdne2853045:0 crwdns2853046:0crwdne2853046:0
crwdns2889612:0crwdne2889612:0 1

crwdns2944067:02crwdne2944067:0:

Thanks! I tried pressing the small button, but there was no LED. I went back and did it again, except that I held it down for 3 cycles of 10 seconds (based on what I was reading elsewhere).

I did plug it in with the 29W power adapter, but it worked fine the first time for some reason.

Any suggestions?

crwdns2934271:0crwdnd2934271:0crwdne2934271:0

Hardware failures cannot be undone unfortunately, you'll need to find a new board or find someone who can fix yours.

crwdns2934271:0crwdnd2934271:0crwdne2934271:0

crwdns2934285:0crwdne2934285:0

crwdns2934229:0crwdne2934229:0

Shan Siddiqi crwdns2934231:0crwdne2934231:0
crwdns2936625:0crwdne2936625:0:

crwdns2936751:024crwdne2936751:0 0

crwdns2936753:07crwdne2936753:0 0

crwdns2936753:030crwdne2936753:0 1

crwdns2942667:0crwdne2942667:0 219